SAN FRANCISCO – Samara Aerospace’s patented satellite-pointing technology will soon be tested in orbit on an Impulse Space Mira orbital transfer vehicle launching on a SpaceX Transporter rideshare.
In ground-based testing, Samara has shown that all elements of the company’s Multifunctional Structures for Attitude Control (MSAC) technology can survive launch forces and work well in orbit.
Flying the Cicada payload on a Mira vehicle offers “the first all-up test, where MSAC will experience launch, vacuum, temperature cycles and show that it produces the same forces and torques in space that we have shown in the lab,” Samara Aerospace co-founder and chief technology officer Vedant told <em>SpaceNews.
“That is the final step for convincing our customers that this new technology is just as reliable as any other technology that does an equivalent or a slightly lesser job,” added Samara co-founder and CEO Patrick Haddox.
Hummingbird Flight
While waiting for Cicada to launch, Samara Aerospace is developing Hummingbird, a satellite bus based on the MSAC technology, with a $2 million SpaceWERX Tactical Funding Increase (TACFI) award announced in June.
The $2 million award, sponsored by the U.S. Space Force Space Systems Command and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, matches $2 million Samara raised in a pre-seed round earlier this year.
“Hummingbird offers enhanced stability that can enable next-level sensing,” Haddox said.
With TACFI funding, Samara intends to demonstrate MSAC’s “core functionality, avionics, mechanics and controls,” Vedant said. “Once we achieve that flight heritage, every single subsystem in the Hummingbird platform will have been demonstrated in low-Earth orbit.”
Under the TACFI agreement, Samara also will assemble the Hummingbird platform for launch.
Seeking Payloads
Seven Samara employees built the Cicada payload in four months. That speed “is getting us traction with potential customers and partners,” Vedant said.
The SpaceWERX funding “is going to help push us further faster,” Haddox said.
The company plans to launch a 100-kilogram Hummingbird technology demonstrator in 2027. For that launch, Samara is seeking payloads.
“It’s a technology demonstrator, so the risk posture should apply,” Vedant said. “But we are happy to be a host.”